A TRANSCENDENT REALITY: reflections on a quality life and the role trust plays.

Maslow, one of the more respected psychologists throughout history, throws twelve people he believes to have “self-transcended” (to be explained) in a room. They had three things in common. Each had had a significant mystical or ecstatic experience in their past that changed their view of themselves and the world, they project a serene and stable personality, and they possess the same five qualities as defining values in their lives: compassion, creativity, humility, intelligence, and divergent thinking. Maslow defined self-transcendence as the ability to rise above oneself and the material world to deeply give, care about, and love another…and in turn, experience a quality life. More importantly, Maslow preached that this ability to transcend oneself happens only after ones basic needs of life are taken care of. In real words, when our basic needs of life are being taken care of, we then have the ability to rise above the material system and ourselves to experience a quality lifestyle of love.

Here’s the issue: A vast majority of humanity carries the responsibility for the basic needs of life. Here’s the more relevant issue: A vast majority of people in our culture carry the responsibility for the basic needs of life.

Jesus, one of the more respected philosophers throughout history, looks in the eyes of people dying to live quality lives, but chained to a survival existence of pressure and reward…and he says this: “Stop worrying and say no to your anxiety. In the weight of your assumed responsibility and the fear it invites, you continually ask yourself: What are we going to have to eat? And what are we going to have to drink? And, what are we going to have to wear? Look up. The birds of the air don’t sow to reap. They don’t save for later. Yet, your heavenly Father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they are?”

Here’s the reality...The world doesn’t need primarily more beautiful, funny, rich or church going people. What the world around you needs are people who are taken care of. People who believe Jesus. People who genuinely walk with Holy Spirit, know he's taking care of their material needs, and are able to self-transcend. In this transcending reality, love finds it’s rightful home on the top of our value system and makes every moment of life worth experiencing and enjoying.

Far too often, I evaluate my life only to find a chain of anxiety gripping at my feet. Responsibility is not a bad thing in itself. It’s just that, far too frequently in my experience, it finds itself as a superior value to relationship and trust in the divine…and leaves me as a slave to my own reality, a product of my anxiety, and reaping the results of a life not sowed in love.

Maslow spent his life studying it. Jesus spent his life preaching it. A quality life starts with knowing you’re taken care of.